Emissions Control: China’s Compromise Approach to Cleaning Up

The rich world wants China to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases; China wants to keep its economy growing. Is there middle ground to be found simply by doing things more efficiently?

Some Chinese officials are reportedly floating the idea of expanding the country’s targets for energy intensity—the amount of energy needed to produce each dollar of GDP—to include greenhouse-gas emissions. That is, to produce the same amount of electricity with fewer greenhouse-gas emissions.

Since the Chinese economy is still growing, that wouldn’t send Chinese emissions in reverse, but it would start slowing down their growth. The Guardian reports:

Su Wei, a leading figure in China’s climate change negotiating team, said that officials were considering introducing a national target that would limit emissions relative to economic growth in the country’s next five-year plan from 2011. “It is an option. We can very easily translate our [existing] energy reduction targets to carbon dioxide limitation” said Su. “China hasn’t reached the stage where we can reduce overall emissions, but we can reduce energy intensity and carbon intensity.”

The idea sounds great. The problem is that China has already made great strides in reducing its energy intensity over the last two decades. That trend started to reverse, in fact, in 2002—just as Chinese heavy industry jumped into high gear. In recent years, even as the Chinese economy has grown at double-digit rates, its energy consumption has grown even faster. Researchers wonder which was the exception—the two decades of striking improvements, or the recent return to sloppy energy use.